In Frank Wedekind’s Lulu plays, what is the title of the first play?

In Frank Wedekind’s Lulu plays, the first play is titled Earth Spirit. The two-part dramatic cycle consists of Earth Spirit and Pandora’s Box, which together form the source for several later stage and film adaptations.

Earth Spirit introduces Lulu, a central figure whose relationships and social position drive the cycle’s conflicts. Wedekind wrote the plays in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and their frank treatment of sexuality, power, and social hypocrisy made them controversial. The works later influenced opera, cinema, and theatre.

The title Pandora’s Box is therefore not limited to the ancient Greek myth. It is also the name of Wedekind’s second Lulu play and the 1929 film directed by G. W. Pabst. The first play is Earth Spirit, while the second supplies the better-known title used by the film.